Now we are getting into the discussion that I asked for. Gus, it is not meant to be a discussion about cost, as we all know they are expensive, it is about the pluses or minuses of each, what drawbacks they may have. Lots of responses wandered off into FT solids, but that is not what this topic is about and it would be nice to stay on point and help each other learn something,
Ron, you are correct about loss of valve control at high revs being hard on the roller, but I would guess that a solid FT experiencing the same issue would get damaged to some degree also, I think needle bearing rollers may well be more susceptible to this condition, but I suspect it a'int doing a FT any good either. I remember when Schubeck came out with their ceramic faced solid tappet, they warned about this issue as the ceramic disc could shatter from impact. I think most people instinctively react like solid rollers are all pro-stock grinds that need springs from hell to control, but we all know that that is no longer true. I have a good friend that has a wheelstanding 71 493 corvette/auto/336 gears that runs mid-tens and is such a sleeper(all motor) and he drives it on power tour cross country with zero problems. His engine is built by a well known builder in Colorado that sciences these BB combo's out, he even uses factory iron oval port heads that he ports and a hydraulic roller cams with just enough spring for control , but not too much so as to rob horsepower. The car runs phenomelly well but he has had to change springs every year and finally this year, he and the builder decided to run solid rollers on that cam to get more revs out of it. it was rpm limited to 6100 So, many hydraulic rollers are mild enough for the street, but you can also switch them out to solid roller tappets and still not need excessively high spring pressure. We will see how much of an improvement it makes.
Thanks for the link, good info. The next article on o2 sensors was a good one also.